2006 King County Flood Hazard Management Plan

King County, Washington

The 2006 King County Flood Hazard Management Plan (Flood Plan) was adopted by the King County Council in January 2007. This functional plan of the King County Comprehensive Plan proposed a much-needed fix to King County's aging system of 500 levees and revetments that protect urban and rural floodplain residents, businesses, regional economic centers, public infrastructure and roads.

Many of the county's levees no longer function as originally designed 40 years ago. The November 2006 flood event, which resulted in a federal disaster declaration, highlights the urgent need to shore up King County's aging flood-protection system, as evidenced by saturated levees, sloughing, cracking and slumping.

Since it is not a question of if there will be a major flood event in King County, but rather when the next event will occur, King County proposed to fix these failing flood protection facilities to reduce the likelihood of future flooding disasters.

The 2006 Flood Plan recommended contemporary flood hazard mitigation strategies to reduce flood risks to tens of thousands of people, billions of dollars in economic infrastructure and major transportation corridors.

To address the backlog of maintenance and repairs to levees and revetments, the 2006 Flood Plan identifies a decade's worth of repairs and upgrades ranging from $179 million to $335 million and recommended the creation of a countywide flood control district to fund the plan.

The King County Flood Control District was established in April 2007 by the King County Council to protect public health and safety, regional economic centers, public and private properties and transportation corridors.

Download the plan here:

The 2006 King County Flood Hazard Management Plan is provided in Adobe Acrobat format with file size, in sections to enable faster downloads. For help using Acrobat, please visit our Acrobat Help page.